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EPRINC studies energy economics and policy issue with special emphasis on oil, natural gas and petroleum product markets. We provide objective and technical analysis on a wide range of energy issues.

Chart of the Week

The Cost Impact of President Trump's Tariffs on U.S. Crude Oil Imports From Canada and Mexico: A First Assessment

On February 1, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a set of three Executive Orders (EOs) applying tariffs to all imported goods from Canada, Mexico, and China. They were scheduled to go into effect on February 4, 2025, lasting indefinitely until a time when the president would decide to remove them. Additional tariffs depending would be levied on the nature of retaliatory actions. The key rationale across all three EOs is to take punitive action against the flow of illegal drugs and their components from Mexico, Canada, and China.

Rather than immediately engage in a tariff war, Canada and Mexico made provisional adjustments in border controls. In response, President Trump’s administration postponed enacting tariffs on Canada and Mexico for thirty days pending other developments.

The tariffs were pegged at a rate of 25% on the value of imported goods from Mexico and Canada, and 10% from China. The key exception was that tariffs on imports of Canadian “energy and energy resources” will be 10%.

At 4 million barrels per day (MBD) and 0.5 MBD, respectively, Canada and Mexico have risen in recent years to account for approximately 70% of total U.S. crude oil imports (6.5 MBD). Other U.S. crude oil imports from countries such Saudi Arabia and Nigeria have declined accordingly.

EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi has co-authored an article published on October 25, 2022 in RealClear Energy entitled “Bad Energy Policy Ideas Never Die“. In it, they discuss their concerns with recent public policies related to energy that have been proven to be major issues that will be difficult to recover from. A quote from the article with their proposed solution is below:

 

“To the fearful leaders in our country: step out on your turf and support the domestic oil and gas industries in ways that will build investor confidence and calm markets. There simply is no other way to meet the future without a strong domestic base for energy and materials. Others will take note, including troublemakers we face now and those we’ll face in the future.”

 

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/10/25/bad_energy_policy_ideas_never_die_860905.html

10/18/2022

In a new video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrJeb7JfHxY), CPM Group’s Managing Partner Jeffrey Christian discusses some issues regarding European Natural Gas supply that will come as a surprise to many people, including the extent to which Europe’s natural gas supply comes primarily from non-Russian sources, so that Europe is far less dependent on Russia for its natural gas than seems commonly believed.
Supporting Jeffrey Christian’s presentation and views are charts taken from EPRINC’s Chart of the Week Series, specifically #2022-38: Europe – Daily Natural Gas Receipts During 2022 (found here: https://eprinc-2.n3w.site/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/EPRINC-ChartOfTheWeek2022-38-RecentEuropeanNaturalGasReceipts-TheDailyView-Version3.pdf).
CPM Group is an independent commodities research, consulting, commodities and asset management, and investment banking firm that provides comprehensive research, analysis, and advisory services. CPM Group was founded in 1986 through a management acquisition of the Commodities Research Group at Goldman Sachs. More information about CPM Group can be found here: https://www.cpmgroup.com/cpmgroup-about-us/company-overview/

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have recently made the decision with other oil producers (OPEC+) to slash production by 2 million barrels a day. The move—seen as led by Saudi Arabia and Russia—immediately sent oil prices higher, defies entreaties by the Biden administration for production increases to ease inflation and stabilize the global economy, and could provide a vital cash lifeline to Vladimir Putin’s war efforts in Ukraine.

JINSA held a discussion of the factors that contributed to this move, what it signals about Saudi relations with the United States, Russia, and other world actors, why the Biden administration was unable to prevent the production cut, and what the United States should do next. EPRINC’s Larry Goldstein participated and provided his insight based on his years of experience and expertise on the matter.

A transcript of Larry’s comments can be found here. The video of the event is below

OPEC is scheduled to meet October 5th 2022 in Vienna Austria to consider strategic guidance to its members and allies on global crude oil production. NY Times journalist Clifford Krauss discusses the issues in play ahead of the meeting, calling on and quoting EPRINC’s Larry Goldstein for insight.
 
The article, entitled “Saudi Arabia and Russia May Find Their Oil Pricing Power Limited”, can be read here.
 
Established to provide a strong intellectual foundation for Ukraine’s economy, the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) was founded in Kyiv Ukraine in 1996 under the auspices of the Economics Education and Research Consortium and the Eurasia Foundation. Over the years, several hundred students have matriculated and graduated from the school, and it has established a joint degree affiliation with the University of Houston. The school’s current president is Tymofiy Mylovanov, a PhD graduate of the University of Wisconsin, as well as an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh.

On Saturday, September 17, 2022, KSE held its first conference and banquet fundraiser in the United States. The event took place at the Harvard Club in New York City and was attended by 250 people. Professor Mylovanov hosted the banquet’s activities; he alternated between calling on invited speakers for brief remarks, as well as coordinating an auction of donated Ukrainian art and memorabilia. Speakers included Economics Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman and Richard Myerson; Harvard History Professor Serhii Plokhii; NYC Mayor Eric Adams, and attending Ukrainian ministerial and consular representatives.

Preceding the fundraiser there was a conference of two sessions each having three break-out panels. Panel topics were all related to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and included global security, the future of Ukraine’s economy, the energy crisis in Europe, as well as food security and other agricultural issues.

EPRINC’s Max Pyziur presented as well as moderated the energy panel titled “European Energy Crisis or Not.” His presentation focused on Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas imports, the availability of alternative sources, especially from the U.S., closing with remarks on energy security and its relationship to national and economic security.

The Panel’s speakers and commentators included NaftoGaz COO Mavriky Kalugin, World Bank Director Charles Cormier, Jamestown Fellow Margarita Assenova, and David Martinon, CEO of Expert Petroleum, an E&P company focused on the remediation of depleted oil fields in Western Ukraine.

Details on the full event can be found here.

A copy of Max’s presentation can be found here.

A story in today’s Wall Street Journal (September 14, 2022) points out that the while U.S. consumers are getting a reprieve from high gasoline prices, a large jump in electricity and natural-gas costs are increasing their energy bills as winter approaches. The index for electricity in August climbed 15.8% over the same month a year ago, the biggest such 12-month increase since 1981. The story goes on to point out that electricity price increases have been driven by rising prices for natural gas, which powers about 37% of U.S. electricity production and that heating and cooking costs have increased 33% over the last 12 months.

A recent article published in Commonwealth Magazine by EPRINC Trustee Larry Goldstein and former Congressman Joe Kennedy highlight the dire circumstances faced by many low-income Americans as we head into winter. A main source of assistance for low-income families is the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. The program is now facing a 50 percent funding cut at a time skyrocketing energy cost. Rising energy costs also highlight’s the importance of sustaining adequate production of  legacy fuels until low-cost and  low-carbon alternatives are freely available to consumers.

 

…Lucian Pugliaresi

On Wednesday, June 22, 2022, the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing titled, “Legislative Hearing to Strengthen Energy Infrastructure, Efficiency, and Financing.” Under consideration were several pieces of legislation including the “Securing America’s Critical Minerals Supply Act” (H.R. 1599), the “Energy Accountability Act” (H.R. 5292), the “Guaranteeing Resilient Installations for Defense Act” or the “GRID Act” (H.R. 8053), and the “Tribal Energy Investment Act of 2022” (H.R. 8068). Along with the legislation, Subcommittee Members pursued broader themes focusing on the recent increases in transportation fuel prices. EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi was invited to testify along with five other experts from trade associations, universities, and think tanks.

A key highlight of the hearing was captured in a Twitter posting when Congressman David McKinley of West Virginia asked what would be the key things that could be done in the short-term to lower U.S. gasoline prices.
Lucian Pugliaresi’s reply included the following three points:
 – lower RVO/RFS
 – national RVP standard
 – temporarily suspend the Jones Act
The Tweet can be found here.
The video of the hearing can be found here.
Lucian Pugliaresi’s testimony can be found here.
On Thursday July 14, 2022, the Westchester County Association (WCA) held their first Sustainable Business Conference. Focusing on the implementation challenges of New York State’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and other related legislation, the WCA convened an afternoon of panels, plenary events, and a networking reception to discuss approaches and feasibility.
EPRINC’s Max Pyziur participated in the Conference’s panel discussion “Moving New York to a Low Carbon Future – How Can We Get There?” Max’s presentation underscored the scale of the challenge in the context of global and U.S. GHG emissions, as well as offering perspective on implementation risk by reviewing key power grid events in California and Texas.

EPRINC Trustee, OIES Research Associate, CEBRI International Board Member Ivan R. Sandrea Silva and EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi have authored a paper entitled “The Low Carbon Energy Transition: A window of opportunity for a new phase of economic development in Africa and Latin America?” This paper is directly related to a presentation given by Ivan at the CEBRI  online conference called “Sustainability and the New Energy Economy in a Multipolar World.” A pull quote from the paper is below:

“In the African and Latin American regions, climate change concerns and the energy transition have received a lot of negative and positive attention and is building significant support especially among the growing youth. But the energy transition is also causing recurring dislocations for both global and regional leaders, the industry, investors, and policymakers. The environment itself is also being affected, and ironically, the level of confidence for the net zero path is dropping as rising energy prices hit the region’s economies. This is because the energy transition “movement’ in the Western world is occurring in a very disorganized and uncoordinated manner, and that is where we see both a major problem unfolding and an opportunity for the leading economies and leaders.”

China has emerged as a key player in the global natural gas market in the past decade, surpassing Japan as the top natural gas importer and the largest LNG importer in 2018 and 2021, respectively. China’s role in determining Asian natural gas trends—especially, gas pricing and LNG trade—is increasingly important as the country looks to replace greater volumes of coal with natural gas to implement its programs to reduce local air pollution. As part of EPRINC’s China Series, this publication evaluates market and policy trends in China and projects the country’s natural gas and LNG demand through 2030.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee is taking up a vote on NOPEC, EPRINC is re-releasing this 2019 article published in Real Clear Energy on NOPEC legislation.

“The legislation would remove a long standing practice that grant nation-states freedom from legal jeopardy under established “Sovereign Immunity” provisions in U.S. and international laws. While undertaking measures to stop anti-competitive practices seems like a good idea, the legislation is bad law and unlikely to achieve any of its goals.”
As oil prices rise and energy security risks lead to supply shortages, we are reminded that EPRINC Distinguished Fellow Rafael Sandra has been alerting us to the oil supply issue for a long time. EPRINC is re-releasing his April 2021 paper, “With Global Oil Demand on the Rebound. What About Supply?” in the hopes that it helps answer some of the questions facing today’s world.

EPRINC’s Max Pyziur was quoted extensively in the Miami Herald’s article “What Does Biden’s Ban on Russian Oil Imports Mean for People in the U.S.? What to Know“. The article was published on March 8, 2022.

A quote from the article:

“We are in a situation of war. This isn’t just an isolated event in Eastern Europe. This is something that affects the world,” Pyziur said. “It’s going to impact living standards. It’s going to impact national security, it’s going to impact food security, it’s going to impact energy security – all these things.”

Today on February 25, 2022, LNG Allies was joined by the Energy Policy Research Foundation, American Exploration and Production Council, and the Energy Equipment & Infrastructure Alliance in a letter addressed to the Biden Administration expressing increasing concerns on U.S. and European Energy Security. A brief summary of the suggestions in the letter is below:

  • Publicly signal support for domestic natural gas and oil production.
  • Set up a joint EU-U.S. Emergency Energy Infrastructure Council to have new “virtual transatlantic gas pipelines” in place as soon as possible.
  • Instruct DOE Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office to immediately approve the U.S. LNG export applications pending before it to export gas from the United States to America’s willing partners and allies around the globe with an urgent focus on the applications that have already been approved by FERC.
  • Ask FERC to act within six months on all pending U.S. LNG export facility and gas pipeline applications needed to move more natural gas to domestic customers and LNG export terminals.
  • Immediately release the $300 million in funding that the U.S. promised in 2020 to the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund to build critical natural gas and other energy infrastructure along the North-South corridor in Central and Eastern Europe.

https://lngallies.com/energysecurity/

 

 

 

On February 25 2022 at 8:30am–11:00am (Tokyo Time – JST) / February 24 6:30pm–9:00pm (Washington Time – EST), IEEJ and EPRINC cohosted a webinar, “LNG: Addressing the Near-Term Energy Crisis and Long-Term Environmental Challenges.”

The post-pandemic world has now moved to a global energy crisis, price shocks, supply shortages, and a geopolitical standoff in Europe. The IEEJ/EPRINC workshop explored LNG’s role in policy strategies to both address the crisis and examined its longer-term role in the energy transition to a lower-carbon future. It will also included a discussion on the potential role of ammonia in the transition.

Speakers included Chairman and CEO of the Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ), Tatsuya Terazawa;  President of EPRINC, Lucian Pugliaresi; former U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette; LNG Allies President Fred Hutchison; Tellurian President and CEO Octávio Simões, EVP at Diamond Gas International Japan Branch Tetsuya Nishigaki; the Japan Gas Association General Manager Yuji Kumai, JERA General Manager Kenji Takahashi, and others as well as U.S. and Japanese industry leaders, experts from think tanks, the Institute for Energy Economics Japan and the Energy Policy Research Foundation for a discussion on role of LNG addressing the worldwide energy crisis and long-term environmental challenges.

The agenda from the event can be found here, and the presentations are located here. The link to view the recording of the webinar is here.

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